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THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE – A Sweeping Bore

Disney’s latest release, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, is great stuff. That is, if you’re between 9 and 13 and are totally versed in all the other cans of over-produced, other worldly non-stop action noise-packed reels of wizard-centered tales involving big musty books, nerdy boy-men, redundant soundtracks, really bad hair days, the possible annihilation of NYC, arched eyebrows and flashing eyeballs, razor-sharp cutlery and extra-long finger clip-ons, dumbed-down ingenues, and those insatiable bloodthirsty females lurking around since way-way back when.

Parents, not to worry – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is just more mindless crap from the Magical Kingdom. It’s all rated PG, and no worse than the spoils on ABC Evening News. In other words, you don’t have to be there with your kids and can enjoy a couple of hours off. This level of highly glossed mythical idiocy, fantastical violence, libidonous energy, voodoo and whodo is so commonplace among America’s children – even they may hardly notice. Except, somehow, all the related products will be high on their Wish List between now and post-Holiday shopping sprees.Recommended alternative gift starter: CD: French Orchestral Works. Sir Neville Mariner conducts the orchestra of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in a fabulous rendition of L’Apprenti Sorcier (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) by Paul Dukas. Also included: Dance Macabre (Saint-Saëns); Pavane For A Dead Princess (Ravel); March from The Damnation of Faust (Berlioz), and more.

JERRY BRUCKHEIMER, ProducerPhoto, Robert Zuckerman

NICOLAS CAGE and JAY BARUCHELPhoto, Robert Zuckerman

“What you just did is impossible!” cries Dave, rubber-faced apprentice to the Sorcerer.

Well, not with a $150 million budget and if you’re producer Jerry Bruckheimer with all those episodes of CSI under your belt; along with the noisy-relaxed/quiet intensity of Nicolas Cage as one of six Executive Producers, and then turning over the direction to Jon Turteltaub with his single TV episode of “Harper’s Island” from last year, a couple from “Jericho” in 2006, etc. The rest is about editor William Goldenberg piecing together the endless special effects from an endless list of contributors that takes about three minutes to list on fast forward.

TERESA PALMER – as “Becky”Photo, Robert Zuckerman

MONICA BELLUCCI – as “Veronica”Photo, Robert Zuckerman

Some of the time and free-flowing cash should have been spent on sending Teresa Palmer (“Becky”) to Speech and Acting 101 and blue-penciling all of Monica Bellucci’s utterances as “Veronica” – a sloe-eyed vamp trapped in a doll, the “Grimlock”, since the death of Merlin. Add to the heap of deductibles the derivative and predictable score of Trevor Rabin. Even the sure-fire celestial voices were right on cue with the “Dies irae! dies illa”: Day of wrath! O day of mourning! See fulfilled the prophets’ warning…”
Absolutely.

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